Jonathan's Friends Are Boko Haram Sponsors-APC

Goodluck Jonathan

President Goodluck Jonathan: wants prayers for victory over Boko Haram

President Goodluck Jonathan
President Goodluck Jonathan

Nigeria’s main opposition party, the All Progressives Congress, APC, has, in a no-holds-barred statement, announced that the sponsors of the Boko Haram insurgents, as disclosed by Dr. Stephen Davis, an Australian negotiator contracted by the Federal Government, are friends of President Goodluck Jonathan and major parts of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

The party also urged Nigerians to push President Goodluck Jonathan to hand the duo, former Borno Governor, Ali Modu Sheriff, and a former Army Chief, Gen. Azubuike Ihejirika, over to the International Criminal Court, ICC, for their alleged involvement in terrorists activities in Nigeria.

The APC, which had often received denigration from the presidency, the PDP and their sympathisers who allege a link between the terrorists and the party, said it remained patient in spite of the labeling because it knew the truth would finally prevail.

That truth, the party said, finally surfaced with the disclosure of Dr. Davis, who also exonerated the APC leader, Muhammadu Buhari and former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai.

In an live programme on Arise Television on Thursday 28 August, Davis had narrated the sordid experience of the over 200 girls abducted from Chibok in Nigeria’s north-eastern state of Borno by the Boko Haram insurgents and listed the duo of Sheriff and Ihejirika of sponsoring the sect.

He also denied claims linking Buhari and El-Rufai to insurgency in Nigeria.

National Chairman of the APC, John Odigie-Oyegun, who read out the statement during a press conference in Abuja on Tuesday, the mention of the two major names had put a dent to the government’s hiring of a foreign firm, Levick, for $1.2 million in taxpayers’ money, “as well as a number of out-of-luck hack writers and pseudo analysts, one of them from Russia, to help push the narrative.”

Dr. Stephen Davis
Dr. Stephen Davis

Oyegun said: “the die is cast. The truth is finally out! Boko Haram sponsors have been exposed.

“They are within the ruling PDP. They are friends of President Jonathan. He cannot pretend not to know who they are and what they have done and are still doing.

“His myriad of intelligence agencies, including the DSS and the DMI, cannot pretend they do not have any information on these men.”

The party said further: “it is true that Ali Modu Sheriff was, until recently, a member of our Party. But the Party always suspected that he was a mole, planted to hijack or at best weaken the new Party for the PDP.

“He is not new to that role. He helped to decimate his former party, the ANPP, to an extent that the number of states under its control fell from seven in 2003 to three by the time he left as Governor.

“We know for sure that Ali Modu Sheriff was planted in the APC to help decimate our party. We confronted him openly during the merger negotiation but he denied vigorously.

“His surrogate for the post of the Chairman of the APC, Chief Tom Ikimi together with whom they planned to hijack the Party for the Presidency was firmly rejected.

Chief John Oyegun, National Chairman APC
Chief John Oyegun, National Chairman APC

“Realizing they have failed, they fled our party and returned to where they came from, and were duly embraced by their controllers.”

Oyegun declared that President Jonathan cannot pretend not to know the alleged role that Ali Modu Sheriff has played in the establishment and growth of Boko Haram, “yet he never allowed the man to even be questioned by any of the security agencies under his control.

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“All through his time with our party, every time they accused us of sponsoring Boko Haram, on the basis of his presence, we challenged them if they had evidence to arrest any of our members who is suspected to be a sponsor, they never did.

“They dared not, because Sheriff was their agent. Even if he had remained in the APC after we democratically encouraged him to go, they would still not have arrested him.”

The APc recalled that immediately Sheriff went back to the PDP, the Maiduguri Airport that had been closed to even the pilgrims from the state on grounds of security, was re-opened specially for him.

“What more evidence does anyone need that Sheriff was and remains President Jonathan’s Man Friday?” The party asked.

The party said with the revelation, it had been vindicated adding: “we have no hand in the Boko Haram insurgency. The raison d’etre of our party is the well-being and security of Nigerians

“The sponsors of Boko Haram are within the PDP and the Presidency. They are known friends of President Jonathan. He knows them and they know him.

“The man who exposed these Boko Haram sponsors is a Jonathan-appointed negotiator. He has no axe to grind, neither does he have any motive to shield the APC or portray the PDP/Presidency in bad light.

“In fact, if he had any sympathy at all, it is for the man who hired him, President Jonathan,” the party said recalling that former National Security Adviser, Owoye Azazi, was persecuted till he died in mysterious circumstances just for revealing that those behind the Boko Haram insurgency were in the PDP.

The party further recalled how Reuben Abati, the presidential spokesman, and his cohorts, had maligned Buhari only to beg for an out-of-court settlement later as well as how a suicide bomber almost killed Buhari stressing that the decided to behave the way they did because they were scared of the popularity of Buhari.

“PDP spokesman Olisa Metuh, an obvious pawn on the chess board, followed suit, labelling a party that comprises Nigerians of all ethnic and religious hue a Janjaweed and Islamic party. Now he is stewing in his own juice.

“In the process of this dangerous politics, the Nigerian military which was globally acclaimed for its impressive showings at various peacekeeping missions around the world, simply suffered collateral damage.

“Apparently, fifth columnists in the military has sold the force out, first by denying it of the necessary fighting tools and then weakening it to such an extent that even the little it had was being taken away daily by insurgents.

“When the patriotic Gov. Kashim Shettima of Borno tried to raise the issue of the poorly-equipped troops and their low morale, he was roundly pilloried. Now the world knows why!

“Now that the cat has been let out of the bag and the real sponsors of Boko Haram have been exposed, we hope President Jonathan will summon the courage to do the right thing: hand over the identified Boko Haram sponsors to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for investigation and prosecution.

“Nigerians can rest assured that the APC will not allow this issue to be swept under the carpet,” the party said noting that this may have been the reason the PDP-led Federal Government refused when APC wanted to support the fight against terrorism.

Oyegun said now that it is clear that the PDP was behind Boko Haram for the sole purpose of winning the 2015 presidential election, Nigerians must prevail on the PDP and the presidency to urgently end this insurgency and the daily killing and maiming of innocent Nigerians.

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